Contents of Project Reports

<< Course Project

Case Study: Agri-Data Warehouse >>

In the context of sales and marketing, a prospect is someone who can become a customer. A

customer is someone who will buy a product or service form you. So every sales person is

looking for a customer or wants to convert a prospect into a customer. However, on an average

10% of the prospects become a customer, it means if you try 10 prospects, in the worst case the

last one will be the customer. Look at positively, meaning the more failures you have, the more

close you get to your customer. This is why the saying goes that "quitters never win, and winners

never quit". Similarly look at the work of Thomas Edison, he kept trying and untimely become

immortal i.e. his name still lives and his invention still used.

What if you are never entertained?

It may so happen that no one ente rtains/helps you, maybe you did not tried hard, maybe you had

the wrong attitude, maybe you did not meet the right people , maybe you were not very

convincing , maybe the end user was apprehensive etc.

Upto 10% less credit if this approach is adopted

In such a case, search the web, read books/magazines and pick any one of the 5 types of

organizations discussed and collect reference/related material (not beyond year 2000).

Use the material collected to write reports 2 to 6.

Now it may so happen, that you tried, and tried and tried very hard, but still unable to get a key

person interested and willing to help you so that you could write to write report_2. There could be

several reasons for this, maybe you don't tried hard, maybe it was because of the other person etc.

In such a case, you will do a lifecycle case study using the Internet. In report_2 you will list all

the reasons for failure and how you tried, and then we will decide about how much credit to

deduct from the semester project. The amount of deduction could be upto 10%. But you still have

to write all the reports and use the material from the case studies tailored to the requirements of

the reports. For this purpose you will have to download a number of focused case studies, better if

about the same organization, and compile the results in the form of the reports as per the Ralph

Kimball's road map.

Contents of Project Reports

The project reports to include, but is not limited to, the following:

Narrative summary of results produced (report_1).

Listings of computer models/programs coded and utilized (report_1).

Reports displaying results (report_1).

System usage instructions (report_1).

Narrative description of business and tables of appropriate data

(report_4).

Descriptions of decisions to be supported by information produced by

system (report_4).

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Structure charts, dataflow diagrams and/or other diagrams to document

the structure of the system (report 4-7).

Recommendations (reports 5-7)

This is self explanatory, and I have also explained in the lecture. Follow the guidelines to the

word, as your work will be graded based on these guidelines. Note that system usage instructions

have to be specific with screen shots of the application developed, so that your applications can

be executed using the instructions and graded. Don't forget to submit the entire source code,

along with the compiled code with all necessary libraries DLLs attached.

Format of Project Reports: Main

Report No.

Title of course, semester & submission date

Names and roll no. of project members.

Campus and name of city.

Table of contents.

1-page executive summary for each report.

Attach (scanned) hard/soft copies of all related material collected and referenced with

each report.

At the end of semester, combine ALL reports and submit as a single report.

Again this is self explanatory, and I have also explained in the lecture. Follow the guidelines to

the word, as your work will be graded based on these guidelines.

Format of Project Reports: Other

No spelling or grammar mistakes.

Make sections and number them (as per contents of report discussed).

Pages should be numbered (bottom center).

Add an index at the end of report.

File name: RPT_no_semester_campus_rollno_CS614.doc

e.g. RPT_1_F05_BestComputersWah_234,235_CS614.doc

Email copy of report.

Warning:

Do not copy-paste, I can and I will catch you.

MS Word has a facility to create an index. You begin by creating a file with a list of keywords to

be listed in the index, and then go to Insert then Reference then In dex and Tables, press

AutoMark and select the file with keywords.

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The naming convention of the reports is important, so that your reports can be easily identified as

there are about half a dozen reports for each group. The following convention to be used in report

naming:

RPT: This will be repeated for each report and will not change.

no: is the report number i.e. 1 through 7

semester: is the semester, some possible semesters are F05 i.e. Fall 2005 or SP06 i.e. Spring

2006 or SPL05 i.e. special semester 2005 or SM06 i.e. summer 2006.

campus: The name of the VU campus where you are registered or taking the course along with

the name of the city or town. Write full name of the campus, do not use underscore i.e. _ or

dashes or space in the campus name.

rollno: Since it is a group project, so roll numbers of students in the group separated by a comma.

CS614: This will be at the end of every file name i.e. the course code.

Don't try to copy -paste or use someone else's work with your name, there are smart tools to catch

this, once you are caught, this can result into zero credit.

Why would companies entertain you?

You are students, and whom you meet were also once students.

You can do an assessment of the company for DWH potential at no cost.

Since you are only interested in your project, so your analysis will be neutral.

Your report can form a basis for a professional detailed assessment at a later stage.

If a DWH already exists, you can do an independent audit.

If you present your case well you are likely to be entertained i.e. welcome by the organization.

The first and the foremost reason to get help is, whom you are talking to was once a student too

as you are currently, so there is a common bond. Since you have studied well DWH (hopefully),

therefore, you can do a requirement assessment (in the form of lifecycle study) of the company at

no cost; the company has nothing to lose. Your only interest is completion of your project and

grade, so you are going to be very objective and very neutra l; hence the company has still nothing

to lose. After you have done the lifecycle study, the same can be used as a seed or input by a

professional organization for an in depth study, thus saving in money to the company for which

you have done the work. Again the company has nothing to lose. It may so happen that the

company you contact already has a data warehouse in place, in such a case doing the lifecycle

development study can be used as a internal audit of the DWH implementation. Hence in short, if

the company allows and helps you with the study, it will be a win -win scenario for both the

parties.

Why you may be entertained?

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Figure-36.1: Adoption/Innovation curve

Fig-36.1 shows a typical adoption curve when a new item, product or service is introduced and

the ratio of people responding to it. As you can see the people who are the first ones to adopt or

embrace it are the innovators, and they are very few. This is followed by early adopters, which is

a sizeable figure, and this is the category of companies you are supposed to target as part of your

project. Note that in our country, Data Warehousing is not yet in the category of early majority,

so there will be more companies who are prime candidates for lifecycle study. You may also

come across people who may be genuinely interested in a DWH, but don't know enough about it,

and want to know. In such a case, be prepared to educate them or enlighten them. It would be best

if you look at a number of case studies or reports about their line of business before meeting

them.

Interestingly, the bell shaped curve (which is not a perfect bell) divides the prospects into two

equal parts i.e. 50% each. You should be looking at that 50% which can and will help you,

instead of those who are likely to help you, but at a later stage.

Finally this project has enough challenges to become your final year BSc project. In such a case

be prepared to do coding leading to system deployment and completion of all the remaining steps.

Remember, many large organizations/businesses may not need a data warehouse today, but they

will need one surely tomorrow. And when that happens, they will be looking for you to help them

achieve their objectives.

The project has more than enough potential to become a final year project, which will cover an

implementation and deployment also.

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